


Un Bel Di

by iloveyoudie



Category: Endeavour (TV), Lewis (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Complicated Relationships, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memories, Post-Season/Series 05, Season/Series 05 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 18:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14195037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoudie/pseuds/iloveyoudie
Summary: "Morse felt a wave of foolish pity for himself. He was idiotic to invest so much emotion into a thing, a simple object, but this represented more than that."





	1. Chapter 1

The evening following Fancy’s funeral was the deadline for the Cowley Station’s closing and Morse’s footsteps rang more solemnly than usual through the empty halls. The near overwhelming sense of loss was only capitalized by how they’d spent this morning, and several beers and several hours later, Morse was already feeling a mite guilty about how he’d snapped out in the pub. It wasn’t that he was wrong but, more the sense that he (as always) shouldn’t have said it. It was a continuing problem.

Strange was already at his desk, putting the lid on a file box that a maintenance man was preparing to take away. He was greeted with a solemn, “Matey, "and Morse simply ducked his head in acknowledgement as he moved to his own corner of the office. Even with the overheads, the darkness of the night seemed to permeate everything. It felt wrong to break the quiet with something as trivial as a hello.

The sergeant’s fingers rested lightly on the desktop as he took a look for where to start, only to find that something had been left for him. The flat brown bag with a folded edge was easy enough to recognize. It wouldn’t take a genius to glean that the parcel was LP sized.

Morse gave Strange a quizzical glance but the man’s head was down as he flipped through some papers and turned to tuck them into another box.

Once it was clear that he hadn’t left it, Morse moved his attention back to the bag and shifted the flap to extract it’s contents.

Rosalind Calloway’s face, pleasant and lovely, a resting rose, stared back at him. Even now she stole his breath. The shuffling, packing, dying sounds of Cowley had taken a sideline to the immediate thunder of his pulse in his ears. Waves of conflicting feelings battered his thoughts and Morse was helpless to do any more than cling to a single thought -  how?

When his flat had been burgled he’d been wrapped up in work, doing his best to push through the vulnerability of the robbery itself than what had actually been taken. By the time he’d absorbed how much had actually been stolen, the twist of emotion had been unique. In a way, he supposed, it was some form of forced closure to lose her again.

But here she was, back in his hands, with the bold signature,

_ To Morse, _

_ Un bel di  _

_ Rosalind Calloway _

And he realises he’d missed her. Utterly and truly he’d missed her. Morse felt a wave of foolish pity for himself. He was idiotic to invest so much emotion into a thing, a simple object, but this record represented more than that. For better or for worse. He also realized very suddenly that the heartbreak attached, after so much time, had taken its rightful place with all the other old tragedies. The feelings were dulled and carefully tucked into its rightful place in his mind, painful but lovely, like so many other things. It’s sting has been soothed, or perhaps simply replaced, with fresher loves and losses.

A note was stuck under his thumb where he’d grabbed the album, and as his thudding heart evened out and the residual reality of the world once more rose around him, Morse set down the record to read it. A swirl of familiar handwriting met his eyes.

_ I think this belongs to you, unless there are other Morse’s with a fondness for sopranos. Didn’t seem right to leave it. _

_ -Shirley _

A surprisingly relieved sigh slipped audibly from his lips and Morse felt a sudden wave of affection that almost made him smile.

Trewlove. Blessed Trewlove. Leave it to Shirley to add another unexpected emotional layer to such a simple thing.

Later when he returns home, once more solemn over the closing of Cowley and Fancy, about his vow with the City Boys to do everything possible for George, he once more finds Rosalind Calloway staring at him from her paper sleeve.

Morse pours himself a few fingers and settles in and while the first notes swell he lets his head fall back and closes his eyes. He thinks maybe that there’s some meaning in this, that if he believed in anything like divine providence, fate, or any of that rubbish, he might take this as a sign.

He had loved and lost yet again she’d come back to him. Doors continued to close and people moved on, and for all he gained Morse also lost along the way, but this - this simple thing - came back.

It would never leave again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James straightened as he stood, angles streamlining as he loomed along the edge of the sofa with the album in hand, “Who’s Rosalind Calloway?"

“What’re these, Robbie?” 

James nudged the mystery box with his toe as he spotted it pushed against a wall. He’s all knees and elbows, a human accordion, as he crouches to pry the lid up. Hathaway’s eyebrows bob up in interest at the contents, but considering the musical nature, it’s not much of a surprise.

Robbie sets two beers on the table before sinking with his usual aged huff into the cushions of the sofa. He glances at the box but doesn’t answer until he’s taken a sip of his bottle, “Went to me storage unit today and found a box of records I must’ve missed. Hope they didn’t get water damage.. It’s dry and snug enough in there but I wouldn’ta liked to leave them that long if I’d remembered.”

James slid out an album, extracted the vinyl to give it a glance, and with an approving downturn of his mouth he nodded, “This one seems fine.. Though by the selection I think this may be one of your Morse boxes.”

Robbie fished up the remote for the TV but waited to see if James instead would be picking something to listen to. There was also a measure of amusement that James had coined the term ‘Morse Box’, “Aye? Anything good.”

James straightened as he stood, angles streamlining as he loomed along the edge of the sofa with the album in hand, “Who’s Rosalind Calloway? Besides a Soprano, I mean.”

“Ah.  _ Un bel di _ ,” Robbie smirked and tilted his head a bit to he could see all the way up the towering heights of James Hathaway. “I asked him once about ‘er. He told me she saved his life once.”

“Literally? Figuratively?” James looked a bit intrigued and turned the cover over to look at the other side.

Robbie seemed to think about this while he took a sip of his beer, “If I had to venture a guess - emotionally. Morse was a soft old bugger despite what people said. And when you mix that with opera,” and women, “Well, I’d reckon she also broke his heart.”

James was quiet as he weighed the information, “Well if he kept it, the good must’ve outweighed the bad. Did you ever ask him what happened to her?” Hathaway was always more than a bit curious about the team that Morse and Lewis had made and took every bit of info that slipped through to paint himself a better mental picture of his friend’s pre-Hathaway life.

“All he said was ‘ _ Murder your darlings _ ’. Faulkner, yeah?” Robbie’s looked a bit accomplished for that factoid only to be met with James’ amusement.

“Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch actually,” Hathaway smirked when Lewis’s eyes rolled, “And normally used in reference to-”

Lewis grumbled, “Quit it, clever clogs, it’s what he said.”

James only smiled more.

Lewis jerked his head in a clear order to ‘sit already’, “C’mon then, decide what you’re doing… music or telly?”

Hathaway bobbed a moment, again turning the album over in his hands. It suddenly seemed a much more personal thing, like finding a passionate love letter, but personal to a man he never even met. It made it no less intimate.

“She any good?”

“Pretty voice,” Robbie nodded a confirmation but frowned sympathetically to his thoughts, “But I always thought she sounded… a bit sad. If I’m honest.”

“I think that may be the point, sir,” James had a habit of using ‘sir’ to accentuate his cheek these days but it was no less accurate going by the song selection, “but I know what you mean.”

Maybe one day he’d listen to it. Maybe one day he’d be in the mood to venture there. One day he’d fill in another gap that was the mysterious life of the late DCI Morse. The man seemed complicated and emotional so of course James found that exceptionally familiar and unbelievably interesting.

The album left his hands finally, laid on top of the storage box, not forgotten this time but set aside for later. James finally scooped up his beer and fit into the corner of couch that Lewis left for him.

“Telly.”

_ Un bel dì, vedremo _

Not today.


End file.
